of emotionally puking all the stuff that has happened to me throughout the last...oh...50 years or so of my life. You see, Cynthia, i am the survivor (i think) of a military family life, then a failed marriage, then a long marriage to an alcoholic and subsequent widowhood (oh did i mention that Dad was also an alcoholic?), and following that, an awful and possibly irreparable break from my 3 children, who all have substance abuse problems. Also, of my 7 grandchildren, two have congenital liver disease, another is fighting lymphoma, and the eldest, nearly 14 has just tried to hang herself. To top that, i have been ill, almost died during a procedure to fix a bleeding ulcer, and also have just had 3 level fusion on my back 6 months ago. I am a nurse, and my ortho dr said i will not work again in my chosen field, i am considered totally disabled. And now, i have been having meltdowns, and my lover, main support is withdrawing from me, says he cannot handle the meltdowns (calls himself my friend, my "good" friend, will never commit to another woman after a disasterous marriage and an as disasterous rebound...)...oh did i mention that i an in the east bay and my entire family, including Mom, is in Ohio, so without him, i am pretty much alone...
Cynthia, i don't know how much more i can handle...
i guess i did puke on your board, feel free to delete.
You certainly have lived an extraordinarily hard life, and somehow have survived this far--but of course all beat up. There is nothing wrong with talking about it. In fact talking about it to someone who will listen and understand how hard it's been and what you had to do to survive is the beginning of healing from it. You are suffering from what is happening now--your disability, your isolation, your lover's withdrawl, and that's plenty to have to deal with. Yet on top of that, you are also suffering from everything that has happened to you in the past. Therapy may be able to help you heal from the past stuff, so that it's not affecting the present anymore. That would cut down your load enormously, and allow for developing a new way to cope with the present that takes less out of you, and makes what can't be changed fade into the background.
It sounds like maybe your body has tried to express the emotional pain you've been in and caused a great deal of physical pain. In my small sample of nurses I've worked with (a dozen or so) expressing their emotions through physical pain and disability has been universal. Also, every one of them has wanted to overcome their emotional pain with their own toughness and will, and has been reluctant to feel the emotions and express them, or do anything that made them feel emotionally vulnerable. They have been used to being the ones in charge, caretaking others, not thinking they need any help of their own. I got to see them when all of that broke down and they just couldn't emotionally muscle their way through their emotional pain anymore, but still very ambivalent about letting someone help them emotionally. Does this sound like you? If so, getting yourself to therapy may require the most courage of anything you've had to do before. Yet it offers you hope for an emotional freedom that will be very difficult to find in another way.
If you do decide to go, it's important to get someone you can begin to trust with your vulnerability. If money is an issue, there are therapists available at almost all levels of fees. Though the lower fees come from less experienced therapists, some of them can be very good.
In any case, it sounds like you're lonely and scared to be more alone. Is there anything you can do to draw more trustworthy people into your life?
